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Leg of Mutton Stuffed with Truffles

A leg of mutton stuffed with a truffle, ham, bread crumb, and spice mixture, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Stuffed with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton using a sharp knife.

Make and stuff

  1. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and fry the truffles, bread crumbs, red pepper, ham, garlic, onion, and milk to make the stuffing.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the leg of mutton.

Bake

  1. Bake the stuffed leg of mutton at 350°F (175°C), allowing 20 minutes per pound.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, holding the stuffing while it cooks.
Fresh bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and fat, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Truffles
Add a rich, earthy aroma that defines the stuffing.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the stuffing.
Olive oil
Carries the flavours in the skillet and adds fat for moisture and browning.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs, keeping the stuffing soft and tender.

The step that matters

Removing the bone from the leg. Cutting close to the bone with a sharp knife keeps the leg's outer shape intact so it can hold the stuffing without tearing or leaking during roasting.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, truffle, ham, olive, pepper, milk):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, truffle, ham, olive, pepper, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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